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The Western District of Pennsylvania is one step closer to appointing its next top federal prosecutor.
U.S. Senator Dave McCormick’s office is in touch with the White House Counsel’s office after narrowing down candidates for the next U.S. attorney.
“We will have more to say about where we are in the nomination in the coming weeks,” Deputy Communications Director Jake Murphy said in an email statement. “Senator McCormick looks forward to the confirmation process and working to ensure there is a knowledgeable and experienced candidate to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.”
U.S. attorneys influence how the office addresses crime that falls under federal law in any given region. For example, they may prioritize certain areas such as drug trafficking or white-collar crime.
The Western District encompasses about 40% of the state, from west of Altoona, up to the New York border and down to the West Virginia border. The U.S. Attorney oversees a staff of around 130 prosecutors, civil litigators, and staff spread across three offices in Pittsburgh, Erie, and Johnstown.
Scott Brady, the Western District of Pennsylvania’s former U.S. attorney and first-term Trump pick, previously said at the beginning of the year that the region’s next top prosecutor will target similar areas to those he did in his time: violent crime, gangs, and drug trafficking organizations. He also prioritized establishing good relationships with state and local law enforcement.
“I think you're going to see the same thing,” Brady said in January. “I think you're going to see that playbook of violent crime … They're going to prioritize cartel activity, drug trafficking activity, fentanyl, any opioids, opioid trafficking, gang activity. I think there will be an uptick in prosecution of illegal immigration.”
Troy Rivetti was appointed the acting U.S. attorney in January after Eric Olshan, appointed under President Joe Biden, stepped down. It’s customary for an attorney installed by a previous administration to leave the office and for the state’s U.S. senators of the same political party as the president to lead the search for the next candidate.
The Senate must confirm nominees before they are sworn in, and Democratic U.S. Sen. John Fetterman has the option to object to McCormick's recommendation. Candidates are typically interviewed by the Judiciary Committee first before the Senate votes on the confirmation.
Acting U.S. attorneys typically have 210 days in the position but are given 300 during a presidential transition. Rivetti’s time will run out in mid-November, but he could stay on longer if there are no objections.
President Donald Trump has not always followed the traditional appointment process in his second term.
Trump has named at least 45 interim U.S. attorneys since January and has submitted nominations to the Senate for at least 30 of those picks.
Interim U.S. attorneys – appointed by the president or attorney general - can serve for 120 days or until a presidentially appointed U.S. attorney is confirmed by the Senate.
University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said that while legal, a president appointing this many interim U.S. attorneys is highly unusual.
“What's so striking about what's happened this time is in the first administration, that all went smoothly through the Senate,” Tobias said. “But this time, it’s much more unusual, and that’s been quite disruptive for some districts.”
Tobias cites a recent example in New Jersey, where Trump’s interim pick Alina Habba’s 120 days ran out. The dispute has slowed the court, with attorneys postponing cases fearing that any ruling by Habba could be challenged later.
“The rules in the U.S. Code of Congress about what happens after those 120 days are not clear,” Tobias said. “Can there be a second or third interim appointment? It hasn’t been established.”
The dispute was sent to the Middle District of Pennsylvania where the federal judge ruled Habba “is not lawfully holding the office of United States Attorney.”
“The administration wanted the first assistant to become acting U.S. attorney, and then the administration fired that first assistant and is attempting to reinstall the previous appointee,” former acting U.S. Attorney Stephen Kaufman said. “But that's now on the court…that is very unusual to have that kind of skirmishing going on between the courts and the administration over who the U.S. attorney will be.”
Tobias said the Trump administration taking a more hands-on approach to the attorney selections raises a question about how the U.S. attorney offices will balance national and local priorities.
“The tradition is a fair amount of deference to each of the 93 attorneys in setting priorities and deciding what they want to emphasize,” Tobias said. “The notion that they would be very centralized, or that they would be what appears to be overreach by the Justice Department, strikes old school people as inappropriate.”
However, Tobias said at the end of the day, these attorneys are Trump’s appointees.
“The president can make a pretty good argument that these are his employees, and they report to the president,” Tobias said. “If you enforce loyalty on the 90-plus districts, then you have more power concentrated in D.C. and more control over the system, which may be a good thing or a bad thing.”
Currently, only one U.S. attorney has been appointed in the Commonwealth: David Metcalf, who was appointed for the Eastern District by Trump in March.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Comber said the Eastern District attorney could have been named first because of the court’s size.
“The Eastern District is what the DOJ calls one of the extra-large districts,” Comber said. “If you look at the districts that have had the strong interim appointments, they tend to be the larger districts, and they tend to be the districts closer to this administration's priorities, at least stated priorities relative to immigration and everything else.”
While no potential candidates for the Western District have been publicly named, Comber said appointed candidates are typically attorneys with strong federal criminal experience.
“They need time in the U.S. attorney’s office either here in the Western District or another district,” Comber said. “Then, they try to seek out diversity of experience and other types of legal practices and settings.”
Kaufman said overall, there have been fewer appointments than normal at this point in the year but expects them to ramp up soon.
“There will be a lot more nominations for U.S. attorneys between now and the end of 2025,” Kaufman said. “If we got into 2026 and there are very few additional nominations, that would surprise me.”
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